In Tuesday class we were told that it's fine to have desires, but not to allow them to to become so absorbing that they turn into demands. If we're willing to hurt others, including other people's feelings, if we're willing to do questionable things, if we're willing to be manipulative, if we're convinced that we can't be satisfied without them -- then we've gone too far.

Do you think that you go too far with your desires?

We're about to launch a new website, with several more in the pipeline, and I have a new Midwestern firm to work with.

Work and music. That's about it.

I'm feeling sort of beleaguered. Partly this is because I have  so much work to do that I may not get it finished by its various deadlines, a thing that always stresses me out. Since the business has added a worker, I'm also having to worry about money again, and the payment dates for tuition loom large. Yesterday I had to go spend an hour at the mechanic and walked out with a $1300 estimate, which naturally made both the time and money stresses worse.

On the other hand, it's good to have plenty of work to do, and I like all the jobs that I'm doing.

But you know how it is when you have a whole lot of things to do and all of them seem equally important and equally urgent? You can end up just sort of staring at them all, not knowing where to begin.

I guess the thing is just to plunge in and keep at it till it all gets done.

I went to two churches again yesterday. At one, there was special music from the children's minister and her husband. They sounded exactly like Kermit and Miss Piggy, the Muppets. Exactly. They used a midi file recording as an accompaniment, and sang a song I particularly hate (with the gestures shown).

They were cute, and it made me quite happy to see them enjoying themselves in this way.

I had work to do yesterday, but I didn't do it. This meant I had to get up very early this morning to make up for it, but  it also meant that I had a nice, lazy day yesterday.

The vignette here shows you how I spent my day.

I used the instructions from Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker to make a couple of necklaces. I believe that I still have the special Crazy Aunt Purl device that keeps anyone from seeing her own Christmas presents on my blog, so I can show them without concern.

The idea is simple: you thread beads on thin jeweler's wire and then you crochet a chain. The result is a pretty, airy necklace. By varying your choice of beads and the number of chains between them, you can get a wide range of effects, and it's only the slightest bit more complicated than stringing beads. 

I also did plenty of reading, watched football with my husband (sort of -- at least I looked up and commiserated with him when the team had problems), and also spent a little time with WiiFit and with Numb3rs. They tidied everything up and dispersed the actors, so I guess there won't be any more episodes. I'm sorry about that; I really like that show. I also knitted up the first skein of Telemark for #2 son's Christmas sweater. It's in the pictures, but it's a rectangle of deepest blue, so it's not interesting to look at.

I can't claim that I did a whole lot of housework, but I cleaned the refrigerator, changed the sheets, and did the grocery shopping,  so it definitely would have been possible for me to do less.

It's Master Bath week at the HGP, by the way, and here's your list of stuff to do along with cleaning the master bath:

• Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
• Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
• Buy two canned food items from menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
• Buy 1/8th of TO BUY gifts. Save all receipts, note return policy before buying. Ask for gift boxes
• Wrap and label packages. If needing to ship, get some shipping boxes now and store packages in them.
• Work at least 1 hour a day on homemade gifts.
• Take toys and books that are outgrown, clean them up and prepare them for donation to toy drives.
• Make list of toys and books that children would enjoy and that would fit in their rooms and that would work with what they have. Keep it hand for telling family what they would like.
• Inventory clothing and have another list of clothing items needed. Measure the children and put measurements on this list.

I haven't put anything into the freezer, I have to admit, but I've caught up on my present making and I've been keeping up on the shopping parts.

We're having a crisp and lovely fall day here. I have to work, and I have housework to do as well, but I did make a point of really enjoying it while I was out grocery shopping.

I'm also getting serious about deciding on what I'm making for Christmas gifts. High time, huh?

I'm thinking of making another sweater for #2 son, because he actually wears the sweaters I make him. The last couple of years he has asked for a particular type of sweater and I think I have enough yarn on hand to make him one of the same kind.

I've also been in the mood to make jewelry (maybe even to knit jewelry). Most of the people on my gift list don't wear jewelry, but some do. I also have a good quantity of materials on hand for bath and spa stuff.

If nothing else, I've enjoyed spending some time looking through my craft books and online stuff.

Serious question here: have you tried the Flip video cameras? Is the new (3rd generation) one better than the old ones?

A highly reliable indicator of the change of seasons: the cat came into bed with us last night. I use the word "cat" loosely, since this cat, upon climbing into a bed, turns into a kraken. She has at least six arms and spreads out to about four feet square, pushing away anything in her path.

Possibly because of this, I had a horrible nightmare. I was with a group of women and children, escaping some unspecified but horrible situation, when two of them pulled out carving knives and slit our throats. Horrible, huh? It's hard to go back to sleep after that. Even though you know it's just a dream, it's not exactly inviting.

And so I was still awake when the rain began. I like listening to rain at night. I'd rather have had more sleep, but the rain was very pleasant.

The weather guy last night said that a cold front was "getting organized." It wounds as though it's getting out Post-it notes and packign all its charger cables, but I'm ready for it.

"Africa" by William Billings is very nice.

I'm currently singing this in the Presbyterian choir and playing "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" in the Methodist bell choir. This may be an untenable position.

My life right now contains lots of work and music, but little to no needlework. This doesn't keep me from checking out the new patterns.  I can't defend it... but at least I'm not buying them.

This collection by Cynthia Rowley is pretty and looks easy but not completely plain.

Vogue has a lot of pretty dresses in its fall lineup. My daughters would look nice in them.

They also have some interesting architectural looking ensembles, like the one below.

I've also gone back to Tuesday class. We're studying Isaiah, and we began with the question of whether we enjoy church too much.

That wasn't really the topic. The topic was our selfishness, which extends so far that we actually judge our religious experiences on the basis of how much fun they are.

I can see where they're coming from, but I think you're supposed to enjoy your religious experiences.

CG2 came to two services with us last week, with a potluck in between. It was quite a nice potluck, with large quantities of delicious food and good talk on things like whether people's unwillingness to play the Good Samaritan is the fault of lawyers.

After the second service (he must be awfully fond of #2 daughter) I asked him whether, as a non churchgoer, he had found the two different churches different in interesting ways. He said that he had enjoyed one of the sermons.

Surely, an enjoyable sermon is more valuable than one that's less enjoyable?

I don't know.The Methodist choir director suggested that my going to the Presbyterian church to sing was an example of covetousness.

The new Vogue pattern at the left is an example of a new take on a classic look. It's pretty, too, isn't it?

Looks like draping and basic shapes with special touches might be a trend for fall.

Not for me. I'm wearing exactly what I wore last fall, as soon as the weather cools off enough for me to quit wearing the stuff I wore last summer.

Or perhaps I'll get a couple of PSDs on my calendar, take a long weekend, and sew something new.

I've got the fronts and the back of my cardie finished.  The pieces fit together, and it seems pretty well on its way to becoming a wearable garment.

I could now go on and make the sleeves, and be ready if it ever becomes fall here. However, I might ought to put it away and make Christmas presents instead.

This evening we were working in choir (this is the community choir, one of the four or so I'm in) on our Latin. No one knows what Latin sounds like, so there are a lot of different styles. Often, a choir director will have a favorite, and will direct all the Latin pieces in that style.

Not this director. He has us sing some songs in Italianate Latin and some in Germanic and then there is "academic Latin." We not only have to remember the different kinds, but also which song goes with which kind of Latin, and we have to remember this while we sing fugues.

Yesterday was #2 son's birthday. We've been trying to get a cake to him with the help of Twitter, a remarkably dim bakery worker in the town where he goes to school, and the Parent Relationship Office. He hasn't gotten in yet. He spent his birthday in Dallas (we don't live in Texas, in case you were wondering) with an injured knee, playing Ultimate Frisbee anyway.

It's Master Bedroom Week at the Holiday Grand Plan. I put chili in the freezer for last week and bought extra baking supplies, and we are to put a meal and a batch of goodies in the freezer this week too. I bought a couple of Christmas gifts. I didn't make final decisions on homemade gifts and sort out the supplies and so forth, but I might do that this week. Stranger things have happened.

We all have to clean this week, since we all probably have at least one bedroom, and we are also supposed to do these things:

• Make one batch of Holiday Goodies.
• Make one extra meal for freezer again labeled HOLIDAY MEAL.
• Buy two canned food items from menus (get 2 of each item, one to use and one to donate to food drive).
• Buy 1/8th of TO BUY gifts. Save all receipts, note return policy before buying. Ask for gift boxes
• Wrap and label packages. If needing to ship, get some shipping boxes now and store packages in them.
• Work at least 1 hour a day on homemade gifts.
• Make list of any table and bathroom linens that need replacing before the holidays, and pick up a few each week.

After staying up till midnight waiting for #2 daughter--

She was stopped twice by state troopers  on her drive down from the Big City. The first trooper made her get out of her car and get into his patrol car (am I the only one now thinking of all those movies where the bad guy disguises himself as a police officer and kidnaps the girl?) after asking her whether she had an hand grenades in her pocket. While I'm completely willing to believe that this is an example of state trooper wit, I was sort of shocked to hear about it. However, #2 daughter tells the story in a very funny way, so we enjoyed hearing about her adventure.

In any case, after waiting up for her until midnight, I slept in until 7:00 a.m. and entirely failed to get up and take care of my Aussies or go to the farmers market or anything. Instead, an assortment of friends of #1 daughter and #1 son came by on the way out to the wilderness to go rock climbing. #2 daughter and I, declining the invitation to accompany them, went instead to Partygirl's house for mimosas and talk.

Then #2 daughter went out with CG2 (we have three colleagues with the same name. We call them, if their name were Cecil, thus: Cecil, Cecil2,and Cecil3. In fact, in these pages, the first one is The Computer Guy, so I guess the others have to be CG2 and CG3.

I lolled about while they were at lunch, reading the new novel by Janet Evanovich. It involves cupcakes, a treat which is still reasonably trendy around here, though in your area everyone may have moved on to macarons.

Cupcakes, however, are pretty and teeny (at least these are) and cute, so by the time they got back from lunch I was thinking that we ought to make cupcakes. We talked shop a bit, CG2 and I, and then I hauled out some cookbooks and we got going on the cakes.

We ended up making Guinness Ginger Cupcakes from Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes by David Lebovitz. We grated up fresh ginger, boiled up molasses and Guinness and oil to combine with eggs and flour and cinnamon, and mixed butter and confectioner's sugar with fresh squeezed lime juice for icing. It was fun, and we made a couple dozen tiny cupcakes.

I served them with chili, guacamole, tortilla chips, and strawberries, and it felt like a wonderful fall dinner.

Now everyone has gone, and I'm about to get back to reading my novel. It's conceivable that I might have another of these pretty little cakes. I wouldn't have thought of the combination of lime and ginger with Guinness, but it creates a complex and delicious flavor.